


Constant Change

by Irony_Rocks



Category: Fringe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-02
Updated: 2010-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irony_Rocks/pseuds/Irony_Rocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometime after Olivia's fourth trip to an alternate reality, it becomes clear that there are life-threatening side effects to universe-hopping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Constant Change

* * *

A father loses a child, and begins a war. Remember that.

* * *

It always begins like this: an impossible event, an unlikely rationalization, and Walter in between. Today, that impossible thing is sixteen simultaneous suicides in a single city block radius with no signs of a correlation. The unlikely explanation is mind control through television. And Walter, only predictable in the way that's he's never predictable at all, smiles at Olivia over his multi-flavored lollipop that Peter picked up from the grocery store that morning.

"You see, Agent Dunham, a television set is nothing more than a rapid series of still pictures fired against the tube in quick succession. There are spaces in between, so infinitesimal as to be invisible to the naked eye. But within these vertical blanking intervals, someone has added information. Violent imagery that seeps into the unconscious, incessant much like a tune of a song that you can't get out of your head."

"I once spent three days with _It's a Small World After All_ stuck in my head," Peter offers, from behind. "I could see myself turning suicidal after that."

Olivia turns back to Walter. "How do we stop it?"

It always comes down to that question, but lately Olivia is getting sick and tired of playing defense so much.

* * *

Two months after she first met the Bishop boys – something she only calls them in her head – Peter takes her out for a drink. Three shots of tequila and one of bourbon later, and Peter starts laughing.

"Are you closet alcoholic, or am I vastly underestimating your weight-class?"

"I'm not a lightweight," Olivia offers. "At least when it comes to the good stuff. In college, I used to bet the Fraternity boys across the street that I could drink them under the table. Never once lost."

"You are just full of surprises," Peter remarks, smirking.

If she didn't know any better, she might have thought that Peter was flirting with her. But she does know better, because she's still stinging over John's betrayal and whatever else Peter Bishop is, he isn't a man to take advantage of a woman. (Of circumstances, of money, of an easy ploy to advance his agenda – maybe. She's heard stories about Iraq – nothing concrete, though.) Still, Olivia feels like she can trust him, but she got burnt with John and she isn't about to fall for someone's charm again unless they prove themselves.

Peter could prove a strong ally.

Strange that she sits in a bar across from him, and thinks of allies. When did she stop being a woman? It's like she woke up one morning and that ability of hers fled, leaving behind nothing but the agent.

She motions to the bartender for another round of shots.

* * *

_The question for now is what is the Soldier and what is the Recruit? The former is the culmination of millennia and days both. The time to develop the intellect is beyond imagination, yet the preparation for the exercise of it is measured in comparative nano-seconds. The latter is the clay from which the other is formed, a potential without release until the training and revealing has been enacted._

ZFT manuscript. Page 163.

* * *

Four years after the Fringe Division is first started up, Olivia dies.

It's all right, though. She comes back to life again after three weeks in the ground.

"Five shapeshifters, four telepaths, three pyromaniacs, two monsters and a Partridge in a Pear Tree," Peter quotes, smiling in relief. "Man, this has been one hellava year."

"I'll drink to that," Olivia says, raising her glass to clink. "Merry Christmas."

If they didn't know each other so well, she would have missed the hint of concern hidden in his eyes.

But they do, so she doesn't.

* * *

There are two of everything, of everyone. Two Olivia Dunhams, two Walter Bishops, two Phillip Broyles, two Peter Bishops and two of Charlie Francis. In their second year on the job, she finally learns the last two names on the list are just there for merely theoretical purposes.

* * *

Nina Sharp once told her about the Pauli-Exclusion Principle, how no two identical objects can occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. Turns out, it's a law of physics with disastrous results if defied. William Belle's storm is coming; it began brewing long ago. She feels caught in its maelstrom, an object tied down and battered by winds from all sides.

It takes her a while before she begins to feel the effects, though. That first year, she thinks she's living on adrenaline alone. Fear, doubt, disbelief – she shuts it all away. There are no limits anymore, and for someone so pragmatic, so rational her entire life, she adapts astonishingly quickly to the new rules of _there are no rules_. It's just her, and her team, and the rest of the world stands clueless while a monster beats at the door.

She'll answer it, if no one else will.

* * *

Some days, Olivia feels like her life is caught on loop in an old season of _The X Files_, and the writers think themselves overly clever.

"Are you telling me this woman is channeling the ghost of Elvis Presley?"

"Nonsense," Walter responds. "Everybody knows Elvis is still alive."

* * *

Charlie was her partner for six years. Charlie was a good man. Charlie was a loving husband. Charlie was a quick draw, a smart agent, and the best friend she ever had.

Charlie Francis died months before Olivia ever noticed.

She'll never forgive herself for that.

* * *

Her third trip to an alternate reality is a bit more violent than her first two.

Olivia launches herself at the nearest assailant and catches his shirt collar, jerking back hard while she slams the heel of her boot into the back of his knee. The man goes down before she grabs a fist-full of hair and pounds his head into the tile. He collapses unconscious, and she looks up at Peter.

"Get the information," she breathes, ragged. "They'll be others coming."

"On it," Peter says, already typing away. "You okay?"

She looks down to her bloody knuckles, then touches gingerly to her aching jaw. "I'll live. Got anything?"

"Yeah, just a sec. It's coming up."

She picks up a gun, checks the clip and the chamber, then slams the magazine back into place. She steps forward eagerly, because the identity of this man is none other than the identity of a zealot, the ZFT leader that began a cross-dimensional war that ruined god knows how many lives.

"Here," Peter says, then stops short as he stares at the information.

"Oh, god," she breathes.

Walter Bishop's face looks dull and strung-out on the screen.

* * *

Peter forgets most of his first trip.

Olivia doesn't tell him everything until after his second.

When she finally does, Peter proceeds to tear himself apart. Above and beyond the headaches, the hand tremors, the nightmares, he decides actively to destroy his life. It isn't self-destruction, though. This is his father's work in progress, set in motion decades ago in another world. There's two weeks of silence where he drops off the face of the Earth, and it takes three favors and one of Broyles' contacts before she finds him again. In Iraq, standing between two dirty streets and a half-empty bottle of scotch in his hands.

"Home, sweet home," he slurs, and for the first time in all their years together, Peter Bishop is genuinely and truly shit-faced drunk. "I always knew I never had a home. Not like normal kids, but hey, turns out that wasn't just a fucked up childhood talking."

"Peter—"

"My mother must have known, right? I mean, you gotta question when something like that happens, and my mom – she wasn't the type to… she _knew_, and she raised me like there was nothing wrong. She never said a word."

Olivia presses a hand over his, squeezing in comfort since she has nothing else to give. "She loved you."

Peter refuses to hear it. "You think I should visit my own grave? I've been thinking about doing that."

* * *

In all the years, the Observer seeks her out just once.

"You will witness the end," he tells her.

She doesn't like the sound of that. "The end of what?"

"You know the answer to that."

* * *

The TV anchorman wears a pale blue shirt and a dark suit. "An anonymous detailed letter was sent last Wednesday to FBI headquarters and to the US Senate. In it is new major evidence that high-level government officials deliberately turned a blind eye to advance warnings of several prominent terrorist attacks in recent years. The letter, portions of which have been leaked to the media, has set off a new round of public criticism of the Presidential administration in both the media and official Washington."

Broyles turns to Olivia. "Heads are going to roll for this."

"We did nothing wrong," Olivia defends. "The accusations that we turned a blind eye are outrageous and baseless. They have no proof."

"This is politics, Agent Dunham. They need no proof."

For the second time in so many years, the Fringe Division comes precariously close to shutting down.

* * *

Nina Sharp dies the eighteenth of March, 2010.

The coroner lists the official cause of death as inconclusive and unknown. Her funeral is relatively small considering the amount of fame and power she wielded, and afterwards, a man approaches Olivia carrying a briefcase.

"She left this to you," he says enigmatically, then leaves.

Inside, Olivia finds a metallic handheld device that's small and circular, with an additional fingerprint scan that grants access only to her. There's one further piece of paper attached, a handwritten note in Nina's elegant cursive handwriting. _For the approaching storm_, it says, and nothing else. The device, Walter declares later, will allow Olivia to travel freely between worlds.

"But not without consequences," Walter warns.

Everything has consequences.

* * *

That third year, they institute a weekly game night to keep Walter occupied. Olivia plays a mean hand of poker, but Peter always robs her blind.

"Tell me you're not counting cards," she warns, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not counting cards," Peter agrees in a mock stern voice. "That would be cheating."

"And you never cheat?"

"Not when you've got the gun," he offers. "Ante up or fold, Dunham."

Since the game has Walter in it, they're playing for gummy worms. She places five worms on the table, and even though she knows she's gonna lose, these are stakes she's fine with losing. Besides, Astrid turns out to be another shark in the water, and she watches as over the next forty-five minutes, Peter and Astrid duke it out until Astrid wipes him clean with a pair of red ladies.

"Sucker," Olivia teases, and Peter just rolls his eyes.

* * *

Her sister moves away after her second year in the Fringe Division. Not because she didn't like Olivia's job, but because she couldn't handle it. "It's changed you," Rachel explains. "And I'm not sure it's for the better."

It is. Olivia has to believe that.

"Goodbye, pumpkin," Olivia says in a false-bright voice, kissing her niece's forehead. "I'm gonna miss you."

She hugs her sister. "Don't carry everything on your shoulders," Rachel says. "Lean on others – lean on Peter. He'll be there for you."

Olivia nods, forcing another smile. It isn't until her family has gone that she lets the tears fall, but it isn't safe for them anymore. She convinces herself that it's for the best.

It's for the best.

* * *

"Telekinetic powers," Olivia repeats numbly. "I've developed telekinetic powers because of Cortexiphan?"

Walter beams excitedly. "Isn't it wonderful?"

Peter expels a harsh breath. "No, Walter, I don't think she thinks this is wonderful. I think she thinks this is a freaky aberration that's going to unnecessarily complicate her life—"

"I've been trained for a lot," Olivia cuts in, voice sounding distant to her own ears. "Hostage crises, terror campaigns, suicide bombers, chemicals attacks, but this… how am I supposed to respond to this?"

* * *

She slams a man into the wall with nothing but the power of her mind, and afterwards her body spasms violently and there's this thin bright line in front of her closed eyes, spots of colors dancing and vision blurring. Peter calls to her, but she can't answer him; suddenly can't breathe. The pain is too much. She drops to the floor as the anguish intensifies.

"Shh," Peter soothes, holding her as she convulses. "It's okay. It's okay. I've got you."

Olivia is left incapacitated for three days in the hospital, but it doesn't stop her from using the telekinesis again when the need arises. Damn the consequences. She does what she has to do.

That's practically become her life's motto.

* * *

Broyles loses his job their fourth year.

The Fringe Division is disbanded, Olivia and Astrid reassigned, and Peter and Walter unceremoniously let go. It isn't until six months later and after a siege of shapeshifter attacks on the FBI that things get reconsidered and undone.

"God help us," Broyles says afterwards, standing stiff in his office with his back to her. "I think we might the _only_ line of defense left."

* * *

_"Our children are our greatest resource. We must nurture them and  protect them. We must prepare them so they can one day protect us."_ ZFT manual, page 137.

Her niece turns seven.

* * *

It's Peter that always comforts her.

There is no need for Jack Daniels. No Russian Reds. No bottle of scotch and six-pack of beer. Sometimes, she knows, it's not about the big fights but the little ones in between, the day-to-day, week-to-week cases. The unexplained incidences that have nothing to do with alternate realities, or ZFT experiments. No Cortexiphan. No Observer. No shapeshifters or nefarious plots.

Sometimes, it's just about the people living out their lives in the meantime.

Peter helps her remember that.

* * *

Charlie Francis has a double with a scar along the left side of his face. On her fifth trip to the other side, she meets him in a quiet alley and he hands her a packet of information.

"You realize how trippy this is, right?" Charlie says, head tilted to the side as he scrutinizes her for any and all differences from the Olivia he knows. "I almost don't believe it."

She's staring at a ghost, and he's the one in disbelief.

"Thanks for your help."

Charlie rolls his eyes. "I'll send your regards to yourself."

She smiles, and walks away.

* * *

In their second year, there's another impossible event, another improbable explanation, and this time Astrid gets caught in the crosshairs. She's infected with some type of bio-agent that causes a degradation of higher functions, leaving her hissing and foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog. Her eyes turn red, and Peter has to strap her to a chair when she nearly bites off a chunk of his hand.

"What do you need, Walter?" Olivia asks him.

He looks up, blankly. "Usually Astrid is the one to assist me in the laboratory."

Peter steps forward. "Don't worry, Walter. I got it this time. What do you need?"

Walter thinks it over for a second. "Two quarts of AB Negative blood, a full bovine carcass raised free of hormones and animal-derived protein, and one of my anti-psychotic drugs from the drawer at the top. Promethazine should do. As long as there isn't any uncontrollable twitching of appendages or severe respiratory problems, we should be able to work up an effective cerebral block that will mitigate the bio-agent."

"Right," Peter mutters, turning away. "Where the hell am I supposed to get a bovine carcass?"

"Check Astrid's contacts," Olivia tells him.

"Remember, raised free of hormones and animal-derived proteins!" Walter shouts after Peter, while Gene the cow moos behind them. Walter turns around, soothingly. "Don't worry, Gene. We wouldn't harm you."

"Heaven forbid," Peter mutters under his breath.

* * *

Sometime after Olivia's fourth trip to an alternate reality, it becomes clear that there are life-threatening side effects to universe-hopping. There is a weakness in her limbs, a tightness in her chest, and the headaches are nothing short of incapacitating. Still, those are the least of her worries and over the years Olivia has become skilled at ignoring issues that don't matter.

Besides, it's just her life.

What consequence is that when the whole world rests at stake?

* * *

William Belle doesn't expect the second visit, and he certainly isn't expecting her to bring company. Walter looks pale while Peter stands devastated, and it takes a long-winded explanation before the truth comes out.

"This is how it all started," William explains, while Walter cowers in the back, shaking his head and muttering about necessities. _It had to be done. It had to be done. I couldn't lose him._ "I'm not sure I can blame him for what happened. Your father was a distraught man, Peter. A grieving father. He wasn't in his right mind. He couldn't bear the loss of you. It turns out, neither of your fathers could bear the loss of you."

"What do you—"

"The Walter Bishop from this world lost his son, though not to an illness. You were kidnapped, Peter. Absconded away into that world where you grew up. He became obsessed with parallel worlds, then. Obsessed with vengeance and it altered him. It led him to found the ZFT."

Peter hears the words, but she knows it's harder to accept. "Are you saying… are you saying I'm from _this_ world? This alternate world?"

William nods briefly, while Walter breaks out into a sob. "I forgot, repressed the memory. You were just a boy, a child. I held you in my arms and you weren't moving. I decided then—"

"Decided what?" Peter explodes, advancing. "To break apart the fabric of time and space to kidnap a little boy?"

Walter's face is grim and ash. "Yes."

"Jesus Christ."

* * *

It's not every day you meet your doppleganger, not even in Olivia's line of work. She has the same eyes, the same face, but her hair is shorter, curved along her jaw-line, short and tidy. They stand opposite of each other in an empty parking lot, and the lamplight above them highlights one but not the other. Olivia doesn't have home-field advantage and she really doesn't like the odds of playing against herself.

"You stole something from us," her double says, staying in the shadows. "Information. How do I know you're not a threat?"

Olivia shakes her head and calculates how long it would take her to reach for her weapon. Probably, given the circumstances, just as long as it would take her opponent.

"We've got two options," Olivia says, calmly. "Fight, or work together."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Funny," Olivia tries. "I'm asking myself the same thing."

"People are different here. The worlds are not the same, and I'm sure you've figured out the people aren't either." Her double steps forward, cautiously, into the light. "Give me one reason why I should trust you?"

"Because a war is being fought," Olivia offers, taking a gamble. "And I don't know about you, but I'm tired of seeing the casualties."

* * *

She receives three more birthday cards from her stepfather.

She burns every one of them.

* * *

The ZFT manual goes like this: _"The unknown truth is that the means to crossover has already been discovered — by beings much like us, but whose history is slightly ahead of our own. These beings are not of our world as such, and as such should be treated as enemies."_

Walter catches her once with the manuscript, and guides her to the backroom where he points out a typewriter.

"This is the typewriter that he used to write the original manuscript, " Walter explains solemnly, and Olivia doesn't need him to tell her who he means. "It's identical to his in virtually every way. He must have sat right here and thought it all up. ZFT," he pauses, annoyed. "Or Zerstörung durch Fortschritte der Technologie, although why he decided to found a German organization is beyond me."

"Walter," she says cautiously. "Why do you think he did it?"

"Quite simple, really. William was right. The loss of a son drove him mad. He created an organization to end the world, all to get back at me for what I took from him."

Olivia steps forward, fingers tracing over the raised buttons of the keyboard. "If you had to do it all over again, would you still take Peter?"

Walter both grimaces and smiles. "Isn't that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results."

* * *

She's in a coma for two months after she comes back from universe-hopping her fifth – and _final_ – time. Her body can't take it, almost gives in, but the world isn't ready for her to kick the bucket, and more importantly, neither is she. She wakes with a start, eyes fluttering in rapid succession before she takes a gasp of air, choking on the respirator.

It takes two nurses and an orderly to calm her down.

Peter is once again by her bedside.

* * *

Olivia's double dies in the back alley of some corporate law firm. Olivia never figures out why or what she was doing there, doing _here_ in this world, but when the body surfaces, it raises a lot of questions with local authorities.

Olivia can't answer any of them, so Broyles marks it all classified. "Is that what a life becomes now? Just something to be swept under the rug and covered up?"

Broyles proves pragmatic. "You want to answer their questions?"

"I want answers," Olivia counters.

She never really gets them.

* * *

Sam Weiss laces up her bowling shoes. "Your mobility is recovering nicely. How's the headaches?"

"Getting worse," she answers. "Even after I remembered everything."

He lifts a brow. "What makes you think you remembered everything?"

* * *

In the beginning, it's Astrid that she tells first. "Why are we waiting? William Belle expects everything to work according to his timetable. I say we start playing a little more offensively than that."

Astrid slants her a look. "What do you suggest?"

"I cross back over and get the answers I'm looking for."

* * *

In the end, she makes the first move and Peter is quick on the uptake.

It's him and her, sober, in a hotel room just outside Michigan where three dead bodies are discovered, and two of them are children. A day of horrors turns into a night of solace, and she pulls off his shirt while he anchors her against him with fingers through her hair, mouth moving over each other, tongues sliding, lips pressed warm and suffocating. They fall into bed in a tangle of limbs, her on top of him, and Peter pushes up against her. She can't stop kissing him while he fumbles for a condom.

They don't talk. There's no need to think. This may be foolish or stupid, but it feels right, it feels like a final step on a long journey, and she isn't afraid because this is Peter, and since the beginning, almost from the start, she always trusted him.

Twisting in his grip, she tells him to hurry.

* * *

Before this all started, before she met Peter or Walter, when she was in love with John and before Astrid was officially assigned to her team, when Charlie was still her partner and back in the day when Broyles disliked her… before all this, Olivia had what she considered a normal life. She tries not to think about it too much because you can't miss what you refuse to remember.

Besides, the world has changed and there's no going back from that.

That's the one lesson Olivia learned early on.

* * *

  
_fin_


End file.
